This page lists items in the database related to Italian physician and entrepreneur Lorenzo Mandalari (b. Melito, Italy, 1855; d. Messina, Italy, 1908).
Mandalari graduated in medicine in Naples in 1884. He was shortly employed as a doctor at the asylum of Aversa, but he left it in 1886 to go back to Reggio Calabria, in order to assist his sick father.
Around 1885 a violent outbreak of cholera struck Sicily and particularly Messina. The young Lorenzo Mandalari, as a doctor, devoted himself to helping the sick in the city. During this occasion, he probably met Grazia Parlato, daughter of a wealthy local merchant, who afterwards became Mandalari's wife.
It is thought that the encounter with the woman and the vision of the conditions in which the sick, especially insane, were forced to live, lead the young Lorenzo to move to Messina and take the project to build a private asylum.
Mandalari and his whole family died in 1908 because of the earthquake that completely destroyed the city. His nephew, lawyer Filippo Mandalari, took over the management of the psychiatric hospital.